Building rises on Allentown's Colonial site

Ground is broken for Three City Center, as major Lehigh Valley law firm announces it will move there.

Artist rendering of Three City Center in Allentown on site of former Colonial… (CITY CENTER LEHIGH VALLEY,…)

May 09, 2014|By Matt Assad, Of The Morning Call

It took the collapse of Corporate Plaza in 1994 to chase Matt Sorrentino's law firm from downtown Allentown, and now redevelopment of the storied Colonial Theater site will bring it back.

In a ceremony Friday dripping with the history of Allentown's rise and fall, developers broke ground on the seven-story Three City Center and announced that Norris McLaughlin & Marcus will be moving its 71-employee Lehigh Valley headquarters to 515 Hamilton St.

The once-grand vaudeville-era Colonial Theater stood there until 2005, when its demolition was viewed as a symbol of Allentown's decline. Its replacement, to be flanked by Hamilton Street on the south and the Arts Park on the north, will feature stately entrances on both sides. And it will stand alongside the dignified Old Lehigh County Court House.

"We were sorry to leave Allentown when our building collapsed," said Sorrentino, managing partner and president of Norris McLaughlin & Marcus. "And we're proud to be part of this exciting transformation."

Previously Tallman Hudders & Sorrentino, the firm had been an Allentown staple since 1908, but left abruptly for South Whitehall Township when its Corporate Plaza office building collapsed in sinkholes. Corporate Plaza had to be imploded, and the Seventh Street site remained vacant until construction began last year on a $177 million PPL Center hockey arena billed as the centerpiece of the city's rebuilt downtown.

"The reason Corporate Plaza collapsed was because it didn't have a proper foundation," Mayor Ed Pawlowski joked with Sorrentino. "I assure you, Matt, this building will have a deep, deep foundation."

The law firm will be across Hamilton Street from the federal courthouse. The county courthouse is across Fifth Street.

J.B. Reilly, CEO of City Center Investment Corp., also announced that engineering design firm Rettew Associates will move its 17 Valley employees into the second floor of the Three City Center building. Rettew, which provided civil engineering services for the project, has 350 employees among five additional locations in Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio and Colorado.

"Allentown's renaissance is perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence and particularly exciting for us as civil engineers and planners," said Matthew Malozi, regional manager of Rettew, which is moving from Hanover Township, Lehigh County. "We are anxious to become part of the close community of citizens, businesses and local leadership that continue to drive the transformation."

Three City Center — with 167,000 square feet of space, 112 underground parking spaces and a balcony with a view of the Arts Park — will cost $50 million, Reilly said. The Arts Park is tucked behind the Baum School of Art and Miller Symphony Hall, and across Fifth Street from the Allentown Art Museum.

Scheduled to be open in early 2015, Three City Center is one of seven buildings and more than $400 million in investment planned by the City Center company for downtown Allentown in the next two years.

The building is slated to have yet-to-be-determined retail shops on the first floor, Rettew on the second, and the law firm occupying the fifth and sixth floors.

The development is made possible by Allentown's 127-acre Neighborhood Improvement Zone, where all local taxes except real estate taxes can be harnessed by the property owner to help pay for developments that bring new jobs to the downtown.

"City Center Lehigh Valley continues to expand and attract interest from more businesses and retailers who recognize that downtown Allentown has become a very desirable location," Reilly said. "The future of downtown Allentown is even more promising as PPL Center, new restaurants and shops, and more great businesses like Norris McLaughlin and Rettew will soon open here."

Sen. Pat Browne, R-Lehigh, a history buff who wrote the NIZ law, couldn't help but see the irony in the location of Three City Center. When the Colonial Theater opened in 1921, it was the centerpiece of an Allentown theater district that roared through the vaudeville era. So, when the blighted theater had to be seized by the city Redevelopment Authority and demolished, it was a symbol of just how far the city had fallen.

"When Allentown went over 100,000 [population], people accepted it as a real city and the Colonial Theater was part of that image," Browne said. "Just as its demolition marked Allentown's decline, this redevelopment marks its rebirth."